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Wednesday, March 15, 2017

Google Classroom Speed Grading

Time

A teacher's time is so valuable. Technology is intended to aid in the ability to save time. Google Classroom is a tool that can do just that. You can instantly distribute content to students with just a few clicks. The teacher has an automatic checklist of who has completed an assignment and who hasn't without having to flip through a pile of papers and check off names. Teachers can access classwork everywhere! It is like having your paper turn-in tray everywhere you go as you can easily access Classroom via the web or mobile app. Earlier this year I posted how you can utilize an iPad or an Android device to handwrite on the students' assignments. This was a nice feature added that bridges the gap between our individuals that like to mark papers with a pen and technology.

With all of these positive aspects of Google Classroom, I still hear a cry for help as Classroom and grading is not a match made in heaven. The teachers I hear this complaint from are correct. There are still issues in the workflow. When teachers open a student's document/slide presentation, it takes a lot of time to load. If the teacher holds down control, he/she can click on multiple docs and they will open in separate tabs. Again, this requires a lot of load time. There has to be a faster way as teachers do not want to go through this process for every single assignment.

Speed Grading!

You may or may not have noticed it in Google Classroom, but there is a link leading directly to the Google Drive folder where the students are uploading their assignments. (It isn't the most obvious link; so don't feel bad if you have never noticed it!) When you arrive in your Google Drive folder containing the assignments, the teacher can then right-click on one assignment and see the preview button. Instantly the preview of the doc/slide assignment will appear with the student's name attached to the document name and nifty arrow keys appear to the left and right of the preview screen. The teacher can merely click on those arrows to move to the next student's assignment or even use the arrow keys on the keyboard!

There is a catch! You cannot leave feedback directly on a document in the preview screen. So for the teacher to give feedback, it works best to have Google Classroom open in another tab, second screen, or a separate device. The teacher can then use the private comment feature in the assignment on the left column where all the student names reside. Grades can also be inserted.

To see it in video action, check out my video on the entire process.

Screencastify

Sometimes typed comments are not enough. Think about how long it would take to go through a two to three-page paper and use the typed comments in Google Classroom. In these scenarios, you'll need reinforcements. In my example, I am utilizing Screencastify to create video feedback for the student. There are plenty of other options out there that you could use to create video comments. I am only using Screencastify because it is easy to create shared links to the videos and post them in the comments section in Google Classroom.